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TEAM ASIA TAKE OVERWHELMING LEAD ON FIRST DAY

Perth, Australia, December 7, 2007

Paired against what is arguably Team International’s strongest team of vice-captain Natalie Gulbis (USA) and Suzann Pettersen (SWE), the Lees - J Y and Seon Hwa – went as far as 2-down by the time they finished the 6th hole. At about the same time, the rest of the matches were on even odds and looking to be a close finish.

Team Asia captain Se Re Pak said, “When I looked at the leaderboard on the first nine, it was looking to be a tough match today.”

But then, the Asians transformed The Vines’ demanding Lakes course into their very own playground and stormed into the biggest lead ever in Lexus Cup play, winning all their matches 6-0.

Team International captain Annika Sorenstam said, “I don’t have the answer (to what happened). We had a great start, had two matches 1-up and I was feeling pretty good about the day. This is a golf course where anything can happen with its undulating greens.”

The lead the Asians had started to build up in the back nine became increasingly apparent when Match 1’s pair of J Y Lee and S H Lee began to claw back to even by the turn and even managed to go 1-up by the 11th when their opponents bogeyed the hole. They quickly followed that with a birdie on the 12th to go 2-up and never looked back since, closing with a regulation par on the 16th while Team International again bogeyed to lose their match.

“It hurts, stings. We got swept but we’ll think about what happened and do better tomorrow,” said Gulbis.

“We’ve got a strong team with great pairing, and I didn’t expect this,” said Sorenstam. “But we’ve got two more days to go ad 24 more points still to play,” continued the captain.

Despite the overwhelming result from Team Asia, there were nagging doubts about captain Se Ri Pak’s injury to her left shoulder. At the 15th, she hit a tee shot and pulled a muscle on the same side a fortnight ago.

“My shoulder’s feeling better,” confirmed Pak after the game.

Her American opponents Morgan Pressel and Stacy Prammanasudh made good play and took advantage of a gritty birdie to save a point back. However, the Koreans plowed on and when the Americans let up with a bogey on the par 4, 17th, had won their match and the admiration of their compatriots.

“The results were good so that makes me feel better about tomorrow; I’ll go out and play,” said Pak.

Team International captain Sorenstam is nevertheless raring to go, “I’m pleased we’re done with alternate shots and looking forward to play tomorrow.”

In an interesting twist to the day’s end, the pairings for tomorrow will almost be exactly the same as today, with the exception of Asia’s Candie Kung (TWN) and Ayako Uehara (JPN) against Prammanasudh and Pressel of Team International.

Sorenstam will also have a chance to exact some form of revenge on the Asian captain as she pairs up with Catriona Matthew (SCOT) against Pak and rookie In-Kyung Kim, also from Korea.